Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“But not everyone has dreams. Some people just are, the way that trees and rocks and rivers are just there without a reason, the rest of the world moving around them.”

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

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CBR17 Bingo: Citizen – Though Cora is a citizen of the United States, her race – as well as the race of the many murdered Asian women in this book – makes everyone around them perceive them as foreigners to the point that they are stripped of the safety that their citizenships were supposed to have given them. Cora works as a crime scene cleaner during the COVID-19 pandemic – after witnessing her sister pushed in front of a train, the gore doesn’t bother her anymore. […]

Well, this was a bait and switch

The Summer We Ran by Audrey Ingram

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So … this was a book club choice and not something I normally would have stumbled on myself but when we were plotting out our next few months of reads, we were very much thinking summer reads, romance etc and someone had heard about this one and mentioned that it involved political opponents. Then, after we’d made the decision, I read the synopsis (secret shared past), I was like, “oh, this sounds a bit more women’s fiction than romance but could be interesting.” And it […]

From Tedious to Fine to Enraging

The Love Haters by Katherine Center

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Bingo Square – Green (the leaves are green – I wasn’t originally planning on using this and wanted something even more green but after writing the review and remembering how much I disliked the book, I decided I should at least get a bingo square out of it). I stumbled on Katherine Center after someone reviewed The Bodyguard and have found her novels since to be dependably pleasant reads – Hello Stranger, The Rom-Commers. As a result, I was looking forward to The Love Haters […]

“Life was very different when you walked through it.”

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

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CBR17 Bingo: Green – Behold, the cover! Recently-retired Harold receives a note from his friend Queenie, who he has not seen in twenty years, to inform him that she is dying, and sets out to walk the length of England to go and see her, in the belief that as long as he walks she will not die. This is a pilgrimage across England, but internally it is also a pilgrimage of Harold’s self, in which he comes to terms with the many things that […]

“Normal is a terrible thing to aspire to,” Patrick had said. “Aim higher.”

The Guncle (The Guncle #1) by Steven Rowley

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This was the monthly library selection for my local library book club, I hadn’t heard of it, but was excited to read it because a LOT of our content this year has been HEAVY including women feet binding, mental illness, racism (actually THREE books where racism/discrimination was a central theme) and mortality. Now that I think about it, um, Schaumburg Library you doing okay? But I digress. I hung a lot of hopes on this book for some lightness and laughs and it delivered. It […]

An Important Middle Grade in Verse

Please Pay Attention by Jamie Sumner

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Gosh, Please Pay Attention is a book that hurts in the best way. Bea is a sixth-grader with cerebral palsy who is Buddies with Josie, a kindergartner with anxiety, and best friends with Rani. Max is the school nurse, and also her foster mom who gave her her name because Bea’s neonatal room was decorated with Peter Rabbit before Max brought her home. Bea loves to draw and even gets in trouble for drawing places she shouldn’t, like her bedroom wall and classroom desk. But […]



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